Well-Heeled Potheads Ditch Joints

Joints are beginning to go the way of the dodo at the ritzier end of the pothead market. The Volcano Vaporizer—a smokeless inhalation device fans call the Mercedes Benz of getting stoned—resembles a cappuccino machine and sells for $700. Its maker, publicity-shy German design firm Storz & Bickel, created the device with input from an MIT student who claimed to have found the safest way to inhale marijuana.

Volcano fans say the high is not only healthier, but much purer. “For people who are experienced smokers, the Volcano is different. It’s like describing the bouquet of a wine," one user, a California lawyer, tells the Daily Beast. "It tastes better—you can actually taste the flavors, as opposed to just tasting smoke. You can taste the herbal essences.”
(More vaporizer stories.)